Human stem cells used to create tiny human livers

Researchers in Japan have used human stem cells to create tiny human livers like the ones that arise early in fetal life

Japanese scientists have fabricated rudimentary human livers, which when transplanted into mice, grew, made human liver proteins and metabolized drugs as human livers do

Singapore: Japanese scientists have managed to fabricate rudimentary human livers liken those that arise early in fetal life, using human stem cells.

The scientists attained success after the transplantation of these rudimentary livers into mice led to the little organs growing, made human liver proteins and metabolized drugs as human livers do.

The liver buds did not turn into complete livers and researchers said that the method would have to be scaled up largely to make enough replacement liver buds to treat a patient. Even then, they warned that they expect to replace only 30 percent of a patient's liver because what they are making is more like a patch than a full liver.

The study that was first published in the journal Nature was led by Dr Takanori Takebe of the Yokohama City University Graduate School of Medicine. The research began with human skin cells, turning them into stem cells. By adding various stimulators and drivers of cell growth, they then turned the stem cells into human liver cells and began trying to make replacement livers.

They say they stumbled upon their solution. When they grew the human liver cells in petri dishes along with blood vessel cells from human umbilical cords and human connective tissue, that mix of cells, to their surprise, spontaneously assembled itself into three-dimensional liver buds, resembling the liver at about five or six weeks of gestation in humans.